My first two tier cake

My second cake order.. This time for one of my close friend's birthday. I would naturally made a cake for her anyway, but this time, her sister made a special order from me. I'm so happy. I'm getting sick of making chocolate cakes, so I decided this time I want to make it interesting. The birthday girl is someone who really appreciates food, so I can be a bit fancy here. At first, I want to combine raspberry with chocolate. Classic flavour combination, nothing can go wrong with that. However, I just bought a bottle of Yuzu lemon Juice that already passed it's best before date, so I need to use it right away. Ever since I read about Yuzu lemon, I was intrigued. I always thought there was only one type of lemon in this world. But now I've been hearing about Yuzu & Meyer lemon.. Of course, Australia being very remote, don't have those two fruits. So I'm on a man hunt for some kind of extract or some sort of puree. I finally found it at Simon Johnson two weeks ago. But it's price makes my jaws drop! $50+ for a 500ml bottle!!! you got to be kidding me!!

But wait! there's hope after all. when my housemate told me Simon Johnson is having a warehouse clearance, I literally jumped for joy. So off we go at 7.30 in the morning to Port Melbourne. When she told me she wants to go at 7am in the morning, I thought she was out of her mind, but it turns out to be quite packed when we got there. By 8.30am, some stuff has already run out. And yes, my Yuzu juice was on sale!! down to just $10. Fabulous!! Less to say, I couldn't keep myself composed on that sale. I was like a kid in a candy store. My biggest splurge would be the 4kg bags of Valhorna chocolates. Gosh! all that chocolates!! my mind was spinning from thinking the numerous fabulous dessert I can create with that. I wasn't the only one that went mad with chocolates. by 8am the once high piles of Valhorna chocolates was cleaned out. At $15-$20 a kilo for what normally is $50-$60 a kilo, that chocolates are a steal!

I can keep the chocolates for a while, the Yuzu juice on the other hand, need to be used immediately. I think I will have "Project: Yuzu Lemon" for the whole next month. So far, I can only think making lemon curd and lemon mousse. Any better ideas??

Back to the cake.. if I had trouble decorating for guys because I'm too feminine, this time I have trouble because there is just too many options!! I tried drawing inspirations from what I know about her. She's fashionable (a fashion desgner I might add), very feminine, likes owls, loves chocolates. Oh gosh! the options! As always, I turn to Flickr for inspiration. Then I saw a wedding cake with black and white polka dots and a fabulous flower details on them. It looks like a fashion hat. So I used that as inspiration. With every cake, I like to push myself everytime. This time, I challenge myself to make a two tier cake. Chocolate cake as the base, with lemon and chocolate mousse filling, chocolate IMBC frosting and chocolate flavoured fondant.


A little drama.. the flower decorations turns out quite brittle. I may have went overboard with the CMC therefore it's very dry and brittle. I should have used gum paste instead. One other thing, I forgot to let the frosting hardens before enrobing it with the fondant, therefore the fondant didn't have a solid ground to hold on to, that's why I can't get the edges to be sharp and the frostng actually got pushed down, creating a bulging bottom. Aside from that, I love the design. The combination of brown, green and red is very chic and gorgeous.

Chocolate mousse
Recipe taken from Delicious - June 2009

• 300g good-quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar
• 1 tbs good-quality cocoa powder, sifted
• 300ml thickened cream, plus extra whipped cream to serve
• Grated chocolate, to serve

Method

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water (don't let the bowl touch the water). Stir until melted. Remove bowl from heat and set aside to cool slightly. Place eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat with electric beaters for 5 minutes, or until mixture is pale, thick and doubled in volume. Fold in cooled chocolate and cocoa powder until combined. In a separate bowl, whip cream until thickened (be careful not to over-beat). Use a large metal spoon to carefully fold the cream into the chocolate mixture, trying to keep the mixture as light as possible.

Yuzu Lemon Mousse
Recipe taken from Delicious - June 2009

• 1 eggs
• 100ml of Yuzu lemon juice
• 1tbs finely grated lemon rind
  
• 25g caster sugar
• 150ml thickened cream

Method

Place eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat with electric beaters for 5 minutes, or until mixture is pale, thick and doubled in volume. Fold in juice and rind.
In a separate bowl, whip cream until thickened (be careful not to over-beat). Use a large metal spoon to carefully fold the cream into the lemon-egg mixture, trying to keep the mixture as light as possible.